Volcanoes The World's 6 Known Supervolcanoes

Here is the list of all supervolcano locations in the world. Supervolcano is a word that sounds pretty silly. It's not just a regular volcano or even the biggest volcano in the world, it's super. Just super! However, they can only be defined as 'super' if they have shown themselves capable of a VEI 8 eruption. That is most definitely not silly. A VEI 8 has the capability to create extinction level events.

A supervolcano can rain superheated rocks and debris down over great distances. An eruption of that magnitude would fill the atmosphere with ash, sulfuric acid, and sulfur dioxide, and could potentially cause (and actually has, in the ancient past) a new Ice Age. Volcanic eruptions are categorized by the VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index) on a scale that goes from 0-8, with 0 being non-explosive and 8 being a supervolcanic eruption. In other words, as life-eliminating as you can get. You might think of these kinds of super volcanoes as existing only in prehistoric times, but you would be wrong.

On January 2017, scientists reported that Italy's Campi Flegri, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples, showed signs of waking up and approaching critical pressure. Also known as the Phlegraean Fields, the supervolcano region consists of 24 craters. The most recent eruption dates back to 1538, but hundreds of thousands of years ago, Campi Flegrei had a series of massive volcanic eruptions. Although many scientists and researchers doubt an eruption in our lifetimes, it's impossible to say for certain.

If you've ever asked yourself, "Are there any supervolcanoes that threaten life in modern times?" the answer would be six. There are six known, active super volcanoes in the world today. And if you want more volcano lists check out the worst & largest volcanic eruptions in human recorded times and death by volcano lists.

Unbeknownst to most, Yellowstone National Park sits on a subterranean chamber of molten rock and gasses so vast that it is arguably one of the largest active volcanoes in the world. A magma chamber not far below the surface fuels all the volcanic attractions that Yellowstone is famous for. The last major eruption at Yellowstone, some 640,000 years ago, ejected 8,000 times the ash and lava of Mount St. Helens.

It is alive and well today, and is the scientific basis for the hilarious volcanic explosion seen in the movie 2012 that blew up Woody Harrelson and, somehow, NOT John Cusack.

Second only to Yellowstone in North America is the Long Valley caldera, in east-central California. The 200-square-mile caldera is just south of Mono Lake, near the Nevada state line. The biggest eruption from Long Valley was 760,000 years ago, which unleashed 2,000 to 3,000 times as much lava and ash as Mount St. Helens, after which the caldera floor dropped about a MILE, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Some of the ash reached as far east as Nebraska.

What worries geologists today was a swarm of strong earthquakes in 1980 and the 10-inch rise of about 100 square miles of the caldera floor. Then, in the early 1990's, large amounts of carbon dioxide gas from magma below began seeping up through the ground and killing trees in the Mammoth Mountain part of the caldera. When these sorts of signs are present, it could mean trouble is centuries, decades, or even YEARS away, say volcanologists.

The 175-square-mile Valles caldera forms a large pock in the middle of northern New Mexico, west of Santa Fe. It last exploded 1.2 million and 1.6 million years ago, piling up 150 cubic miles of rock and blasting ash as far away as Iowa. As with other calderas, there are still signs of heat below: hot springs are still active around Valles.

Geologists suspect the cause of Valles caldera has something to do with how the western United States' portion of the North American tectonic plate is being pulled apart.

The 1,080-square-mile Toba caldera in North Sumatra, Indonesia is the only supervolcano in existence that can be described as Yellowstone's "big" sister. About 74,000 years ago, Toba erupted and ejected several thousand times more materials than what had erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980. Some researchers think that Toba's ancient super-eruption and the global cold spell it triggered might explain a mystery in the human genome.

Our genes suggest we all come from a few thousand people just tens of thousands of years ago, instead of from a much older, bigger lineage — as the fossil evidence testifies. Both could be true if only a few small groups of humans survived the cold years following the Toba eruption.